Maureen's farewell address

Before she died, Maureen wrote a farewell address with instructions for it to be read out at her memorial and funeral services. The address is reproduced below....


Steve and I had only just arrived back at my parent’s beach house for a brief vacation when I got Taylor’s message. The message says that two of the women from the cancer group Taylor facilitates have died. This makes four women I know from the group that have died in the last 2 months.

Safely alone with my confusion, I lay in bed with thoughts churning. My eyes begin to sting under their lids. I’m struggling. I want to live in the joy of the truth of who You are, Lord. Help me.

I fall asleep. And I dream.

Steve and I stand face-to-face in a dimly lit drawing room entirely crammed with furniture. Music can be heard – something like a waltz. Steve extends his arm and offers me his hand, inviting me to dance. Warily, I accept, glancing around the crowded room. Surely, there is too much furniture here for dancing. Steve encourages me simply to follow his lead.

I raise my chin up and our eyes meet with my best attempt at a confident smile; his hand gently but firmly presses on the small of my back. We move, cautiously at first. After a hand full of steps I realize we’ve missed the furniture and I relax. Our eyes focus on each other; to my delight we glide rhythmically, gracefully, step after step.

The room falls away.

There is only me and Steve. Attentive without strain to the smallest nuanced movement of the other, we dance. A shot of peace and joy pierces my heart and radiates outward, filling me. I suddenly know I am dreaming and that this dancing is a snapshot of the deepest foundation of our marriage. It’s a taste of pure, undefiled love between man and woman, and it’s rich beyond description. It is beyond that which any of us have ever experienced, but perhaps have glimpsed in the best of fleeting moments. Yet the glimpse has been enough to inspire all manner of love song and story and poetry down through the ages. As the dream dance continues for a few more moments, I am deeply awed and deeply grateful.

The scene changes and then several follow quickly, one after the other, bursting with life: friends gathered on deep plush sofas while a strange variety of food – bite-sized chocolates but also bite-sized fish cakes – is passed around on silver trays; two long-haired cats of splendid rainbow patterns startle my eyes and – oddly enough – want to fight each other; misbehaving dogs perform ridiculous, endearing antics for their people like naughty, beloved children. They are all scenes of Life with a capital L. Teaming Life: rich and full and – I don’t know why this should surprise me – quirky.

And then, finally, I am in a vast outdoor expanse: a hillside. Throngs of people sit on the ground in front of me, filling my vision as far a my eyes can se. We are all people who have cancer, surrounded also by loved ones. Mom and Barbara sit beside me. We are listening to people tell their stories. My attention is drawn to one particular Asian man, about sixty years old, who sits a couple of yards away. I look into his shining brown eyes into an immense grief, sadness and fear. He’s overwhelmed by the cancer he has and by the life he has led.

He is in the middle of his story, and as I listen I am moved and broken and begin to sob.

I hear the utter beauty of the story he’s telling. It’s a story rife with joy and pain, comedy and tragedy. It’s a strange story: there are aspects of it that I understand but many more that are way beyond me. I weep for the sheer immensity of it, in gratitude. Somehow it’s my story too. Somehow it is ours. Somehow it is bigger than all of us put together.

I awake, sobbing, my face and pillow wet with tears. When I’m able to think, I realize that God has answered my prayer, and I thank Him. I know I have been given a vision of reality: Life, so big it feels like it is – like I am – going to burst. Life as God created it and intended it - the Life for which Jesus died. The promise.

The promise is real – if not the rainbow striped cats.

I feel like I just got to visit the place where fairy tales come from . . . where great fairy tale writers like George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis get their inspiration . . .

The next morning I ease out of bed to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen.

I settle in next to mom on the white wicker sofa, and mom asks,

“Honey, in that group you go to at the cancer hospital . . . well, they must sometimes … Does anyone ever die?
I figured it must happen. And, honey, I know the answer really … and I know you have told me before. But how is it that you are so peaceful? So … hopeful?”
she says.

I smile back and feel an energizing surge of excitement.

“Let me tell you about the dream I had last night.”The Truth is . . .

I don’t know how to deal with this without God’s guidance. That’s the truth about this situation and all others. I’ve learned over and over that I need God’s guidance.

I’m comforted knowing God assures us that if we ask Him for this wisdom, He will give it to us. So I can rest in that. God knows I’d like to help my family and friends as they live this out.

I long for them to know the thrill and deep satisfaction that comes from relating back and forth with God! There’s a whole world that will open up for them that will knock their socks off, in the best possible way.

Lord, I know You love these people more than I ever could.

I pray that You draw them close to You; that they submit and allow themselves to be drawn.

Lord, help me to have patience. Build my character. It needs building. Show me how to live well and – if that is what is happening – to die well.

You do test us, Lord… You strengthen, build character, increase our patience, our love our compassion. Does our journey – in all these areas – go on after we die? If You bring about all this strengthening in us, is it for reasons that transcend our lives – as we know them – here?

Please give me words for others.

I have great hope for all our lives. If God is taking me home to Him, He is taking all of you so much closer to Him too.



Back on my right side now, an inevitable and recently recurring reverie: what will it be like for me after I die?

I don’t care about mansions or jewels or even chocolate. Stuff (and stuffing myself) never did much for my loneliness. What about all these people in my life now: Steve and my parents; my sisters and brothers; and all my friends; the folks at church? Why have I felt it right to spend so much time trying to share my life with them and sharing in theirs? After so many years of wanting to feel such care and love for others, and to receive it back, what’s the point of it all happening now if I’m just going to up and die? It doesn’t make sense.

In the darkness, again, I remember God. It helps me to be a little didactic with myself. I remember that He’s really really big and really really good. He tells us that we are to love him and each other.

And now I get a little excited, feel my hear flutter and stretch. Relationships matter to Him. He’s gone through all kind so of trouble to show us that He is for us, that He loves us. He’s all about us caring for each other, building strong relationships. It gives me hope that somehow, in some way that I can’t fathom, I get to stay involved in the lives of people that I love after I die. It gives me hope that part of worshipping Him with all the hosts of the angels and the saints includes caring for the people He cares about. Jesus was crucified, but He was resurrected. And even after He ascended again into heaven, we’re told – and I experience it – that He’s still alive, active in the lives of people in the world. And if I am to become like Him, well then I hope that means somehow my relationships continue and also that I’m infinitely better at loving after I’m in Heaven than I’ve ever been on Earth. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, likens our current bodies to seeds with potential to blossom into fully-flowered bodies of unimaginable splendor.

Currents of quiet excitement run through me.

Outside in the garden, I hear the two-note trill, a tiny dawn trumpet. The first note is higher than the second; the second sounds longer than the first. This solitary singer always begins the bird’s morning sound, “Yoo-hooo . . . Yoo-who,” over and over again, eventually joined by a cacophony of cheerful chatter.

Splendor? I know I can’t figure it out with my puny little self-consciousness. Instead I doze in and out of the twitter-patting of the birds for several more hours, automatic, hoping that I get to love these people forever.

Don’t forget we can’t fathom the depths of God. He is beyond us, but has come down to be with us, out of love and goodness. That is really who He is – really, really big and good – The Source of all love, the Rock. You can count on it.